Hardik Patel Declares His Support for Nitish Kumar in the Upcoming Bihar Polls

Jamshedpur: Hardik Patel, the 22-year-old leader of the Patel agitation, has declared his support for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the upcoming Assembly Elections for the JD(U) leader, Mr Patel said, belonged to his community.

"Nitish Kumar is a good chief minister and belongs to our community. Hence, we will support him in the election," Mr Patel said.

The assembly polls in Bihar will be held in five phases starting next month. The 'Grand Alliance' of Nitish Kumar-led JD(U), Lalu Prasad's RJD and the Congress is pitted against a coalition of the BJP, the LJP, RLSP and the newly formed Hindustani Awam Morcha party led by in Bihar.

In the steel city to participate in 'Karma Mahotsav', Hardik Patel also spoke about the quota agitation he is spearheading and vowed to take it to its "logical end".

Following the announcement by Gujarat government of a package for the economically-backward category, Mr Patel said that what had been offered was a 'lollipop' even as he maintained that reservation should be on the basis of caste alone.

Hardik Patel, convener of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), had announced on Friday that he would launch a "lollipop movement" to register displeasure over the package. He, meanwhile, also advocated a review of reservation in the last six decades.

"Review of reservation should be done on development front and not for its abrogation... We should review it for seeing how to develop the communities," he said.

Asked about the development of Gujarat under the chief ministership of Narendra Modi, he said that the rich had become richer and the poor poorer in the last one-and-a-half decades in the state.

Talking about his visit to Jamshedpur, Mr Patel said he had come to know that the problems of Kurmis were similar to that of his Patel community. Hardik said he supported the Kurmis' demand for inclusion in the ST category instead of the present OBC.

Asked whether he has any political ambition, Mr Patel said "Only time will tell", but added that, for now, he would motivate the youth of his community to contest elections as Patels did not have adequate representation.